


Always May

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-11
Updated: 2005-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-19 06:24:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12404820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Lily never liked James, and she certainly never trusted him. So when James strikes up a slight friendship with her in sixth year, she can't help but suspect ulterior motives. And of course, it always runs deeper than she might have thought.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**Prologue**

Lily Evans sat solitarily by the water, feeling tragically alone and knowing fully she should move before she caught her death. 

Saddened, unsure of herself, wishing for a friend, she swung her legs through the cloudy waters of the lake, and wondered if the world was okay like this, if she was okay. She knew she’d wake up tomorrow, and she would look over at James, and everything would be right again, but, for now, she was simply lost. 

In her lap lay the faded blue-jean journal that she had once considered a friend, a loving confidante who wouldn’t disagree with every word she spoke. The words inside felt distant now, like lies or like a prior life she no longer connected with. She traced the two words she had once scrawled across the cover, and she felt as if she was freezing up and slowly, slowly dying. She didn’t know how to fix it, to heal it; more so, she didn’t know how to go about dying for what she had once been. 

_Was it necessary to be so alone_ , she wondered, _to be so broken, to become so fragile? Could it have been different, and still be the same?_ She couldn’t remedy herself now, not after her life had changed so drastically. 

It had been five months since her world had shifted into a summersault of words and thoughts and feelings. If she could erase it, she wouldn’t have. Knowing that, she pulled her feet out of the water, bent them in front of her and studied the exact color of red she had painted them two days prior. She yawned widely, and thought about how she wanted a cigarette, though she knew it was better not to smoke one. 

She pulled a black boot over her toes, over her heel, over her cold, wet feet, and tied it with slow precision, then proceeded to repeat the action on the other foot. She wasn’t sure she remembered how to stand, though she did so anyway, looking into the lake and hoping she wouldn’t fall. 

Her grip on the notebook drew blood back from her fingers, turning them a paler white then they had formerly been, though Lily barely noticed it. But as her knees locked straight, she couldn’t stop the flick of her wrist that surprised her so much that she lost hold of the denim and sent the journal flying right into the lake. 

She wasn’t sure she had ever meant to do it, and she didn’t know if it mattered, and for a moment, all she wanted was someone to hold her, to love her, to tell her it was ok. And she closed her eyes and slowly, slowly, slowly imagined the notebook with all her thoughts and the two words "Always May" fading into the deepest depths of the water. 

She bit her lip, turned back to face Hogwarts castle, and decided to never ever wish upon a sun-bright day again.

 

A/N: This is _Always May_ , rewritten. I’m in the process, and have been for several months now, of reworking the entire story from the mess I started writing two years ago into a more organized, perhaps more conventional fanfiction novel. Before, _May_ was really just a tempest of words, each disconnected from all the rest, and I’ve always been okay with that. Lately, I’ve come across a higher standard for what I write. I can no longer leave posted what I had. I originally posted this on fanfiction.net. I will probably continue to post new chapters there until I reach chapter thirteen in the rewrites. I may or may not then erase it from their database. I currently have a great deal of pride in this story, so feel free to tear all that down. Review with your worst. It’s character-building.


	2. Uncertainty

**Chapter One: Uncertainty**

_Feel the world in a glint of an eye._

Lily grinned in a self-sufficient burst of pride at the words. She hadn’t expected them, and they struck her deeply because of it. He had called her a beautiful girl, and maybe he didn’t mean it, but he had said it, despite her obnoxiously red hair, and despite the fact that she hardly wore any make-up. He was a man of god, a man so pure that he was perfectly made with brilliantly brown eyes that saw everything in her, and he thought _she_ was beautiful. 

She wondered what about her made him say that, if it was the way she had brushed her hair that morning or that she wasn’t wearing lipstick, so unlike the other girls at the church that Sunday morning? She thought about the way she had pulled him aside after the service and asked him if pleasure in pain was okay, since god caused pain as well. She wondered why he asked her what sort of pain such a _beautiful_ girl could ever feel. 

Did he feel pain? He was a priest, of course, and she wasn’t sure priests were human in the way everyone else was. She wasn’t, certainly. As a witch, as she had known she was since she was eleven years old, she wasn’t the same as her family, or any of the Muggles she had met in her life. A priest would be like that too, she thought. 

It hadn’t been a good day; not before they had spoken. Her eyes felt too much a startling green, and her skirt, also green though somewhat paler, seemed to clash with the vibrancy she felt. She felt raw, ugly, rushed out of bed. She had drunk her tea much quicker than she should have, and she liked it even less for that. Her white heels hurt her toes, and her mother had forced her too take off the electric blue nail-polish she had been wearing, claiming it was too exuberant for the ecclesiastic Sunday norm of church. 

All morning, she felt as if she was sinning against god. She wasn’t sure why, and she didn’t want to know, but as Father Alexander gave his sermon, she listened so intently, she felt as if he spoke to her alone. More than anything, she wanted to speak to him, for him to tell her what to do with her life, and she wanted to be sure that it was okay that she was a witch. He might tell her that it was an honor, that God had divinely chosen her as one, she thought, but she didn’t have the courage to ask. She asked about pain, instead, deciding that being a witch was the pain God had chosen her to feel. And he called her beautiful, even though she was sure he could see everything about her; the impurities, the magic, the breaks and fractures and passions. 

She had tilted her head in wonder, with eyes widened much bigger than they normally were. She wanted to kiss him, and suck in all of his purity. She wanted him to call her beautiful again, and she wanted to smile at him this time, to not get so lost in his eyes. She sat against the white stone church, back straight, legs bent, skirt falling all around her, pulling her hair back away from her face. If she could be anything but what she was, she wished she was pure like Father Alex. She wished she could convey all his godliness in speech until she wasn’t alone, until she was different, until she had deep brown eyes that saw through the world until all of it was pure.

She closed her eyes, smiling a little. She liked who she was right here by the church, even if her eyes were too green and her hair too red and her nature too strange. Even if no one loved her but herself. A beautiful man, a priest God must love, saw good in her. Lily smiled and let her teeth sink into her lips.

***

"Lily, how many _times_ have I told you not to put your jumpers in the dryer? Now your lavender one’s ruined, and I don’t think it can be fixed." 

Lily scrunched her eyes a little, trying to push her mother’s high voice a little further from her ear. She had been trying to remember the exact amount of mandrake root necessary in a potion to cure pus-exuding warts. Remembering that the pus from those warts was helpful, if saved, in other forms of healing made the potion tricky. If the potion was made correctly, the effects of the mandrake root counteracted the pus, and made a sort of orange precipitate in place of the warts, which could then be scraped off and stored. However, if the maker measured the mandrake root to the wrong degree, there was a spectrum of dangerous results that could last over a century. She wrote a number on her parchment, hoped it was the right amount, and then looked up at the wall opposite her chair. 

"That’s not mine. I’m fairly sure it’s Petty’s favorite, though. I’d suggest you break the news to her in a gentler way than you’ve told me. You know how touchy she can be." She spoke with her lips tightened, rather like her sister, Petunia, in that. She waved her fingers around in front of her face, distracting herself and her mother, her eyes made wide by some unseen force. She turned to face her mother. "I’d rather not be blamed for every little mistake in this house. I know I can’t cook, or clean, or dress properly, but I don’t have to know those things." 

Mrs. Mary Evans looked at her daughter with equally widened green eyes, and her own tight-lipped smile slowly relaxed. Just when her daughter though she would scold her for her sass, she spoke again with softer, motherly accents. "I’ve missed you, darling." Lily raised an eyebrow and smiled. "I’ve missed you too, mum. I’d stay here much longer if I could." She tried not to think of decadently brown eyes, ones she could see every Sunday if she just stayed home, ones that saw her as _beautiful_. 

"I’ll hold the days back, Lily." Lily blinked and smiled, watching almost thoughtlessly as her mother turned back to unload a rainbow of laundry from the dryer, filling the room with the sent of freshness.

***

Lily brought the phone a little lower from her ear. "I don’t know, Calli. It’s a long drive, and mum hates cars." She listened to the voice on the other side of the line, shrugged, and then spoke. "It _has_ been forever. But it’s really still Christmas, isn’t it? Mostly? My mum doesn’t see me very often, and it’s not even the New Year yet, so she probably wants to keep me for herself." The conversation paused on Lily’s side. "No, of course I’m not a mummy’s girl. Have you ever known me that way?" Lily listened to the quickness of the resounding ‘ _yes_.’"Well, I’m not one. Maybe I’ll see you over Easter."

Lily placed the receiver back at it berth, and shifted her jaw. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had seen Calli Dale. Perhaps it had been the summer before at somebody’s (Lily couldn’t remember whose) grandmother’s luau which Calli’s mother had driven sixty miles to, just so the two friends could see each other. Schools apart, miles apart, eons apart, it didn’t really matter the distance; Lily already knew she and Calli had stopped being best friends the day Lily received her first Hogwarts letter. 

It was far too difficult to bridge the gap between the Muggle and Magical worlds. She had seen people do it, like a boy in her year, Remus Lupin, but he always looked so worn. It seemed much too hard a job to do. 

Lily walked back to her chair in the den and continued to scrawl neat letters forming words about mandrake root and pus-exuding warts. **** _  
_


	3. Pierced Soul

**Chapter Two: Pierced Soul**

_It isn't so hard to pierce the days with glinting stones and gaudy diamonds. It's much harder to live with it._

Lily stared at the ceiling and her head pulsed. There was nowhere she would rather be than here, seated in the corner of the den with her elbow on her knee and her head cocked sideways into her elbow. She compared the light from the large window behind her to the shadows that danced up the walls and mingled where the light hit ceiling, and let her thoughts pass her by. 

She thought of Petunia, her sister; the way her speech turned into screeches when it reached a certain pitch, and the way her fingers were beautifully narrow, and how she had never seen hair the same shade of blonde as Petunia's hair. She thought of her mother telling her she loved her and beaming so big that her cheeks took a faint blush to them. And she thought about how she couldn't remember Remus Lupin without a book nearby; how she should read more often and study a little harder at transfiguration. Her thoughts all muddled together, and later she wouldnÃƒ¢Ã¢‚¬Ã¢„¢t remember what she thought about in the little corner of the den as her mind ran wild. 

It was a rainy day, a week into January. The windows had taken a light frost to them, and Lily thought the rain might soon turn to snow, though she didn't mind either way. Instead, she imagined it a muggy afternoon, halfway through the summer holidays, and how she had planted a ring of sunflowers in the garden which she wished she could lie down under but was too lazy to actually do so. She smiled as she thought of it, and decided that the following summer she would learn to plant sunflowers, because they were so strangely beautiful and they would make such a pretty place to hide. 

She wondered if Father Alex had thought of her since they had spoken the Sunday before, but couldn't bring herself to care whether or not he had. She couldn't find a reason to the day, a center to the nothingness that surrounded her, and she couldn't make herself search for any beauty in the rain and fog or the angle at which her head was pressed into the crook of her arm. 

She realized vaguely that a single spell would separate her mind into four parts, one for each of the things she was: divinity; beauty; wonder; tranquility. It was an old spell, and she wasn't supposed to know of it, but it was the most interesting thing she had ever heard of, the division of a human being into such strange parts. She wasn't sure she could fit into any of the four, but the more she thought of it, the more she considered casting it, going so far as to reach into her pocket, and slowly, slowly, slowly, lazily even, draw out her wand. Willow with a center of unicorn hair, very good for charms. Mr. Ollivander had told her so five year prior, and it had always been true. She could cast the spell easily, she was sure. 

"You know, you're not supposed to be waving that thing around the house, _Lily_." 

PetuniaÃƒ¢Ã¢‚¬Ã¢„¢s voice resonated with a high pitch of superiority to it and a lack of reverence for magic. Lily shrugged, hardly concerned with her sister. "Probably," she said. "But you shouldn't say those things when I am." 

" _Why_ not?" 

Her voice challenged her sister's slow, undemanding, almost morose nature, and Lily raised her head from her arm to look at her sister, to blink, and to shrug again. Lily looked away to stare back up through her eyelashes at the ceiling. She thought it should be obvious that she could turn her into a frog, or a pin, or an ant. 

Petunia was quiet for a moment, glaring, with her hand on her hips, her feet on the stairs that led up from the den to the second floor. Her eyes had a flare to them, though she wasn't sure how to turn that into words, and she stomped her foot, though Lily didn't hear it. 

"Can't you tell mum I'm going out now?"   
Lily straightened up. "Can't," she said, frowning, thinking, leaning forward so she could stand up. "Write her a note; she's not home." 

"Yes, but _you'll_ tell her when she _does_ get home."

"Can't," Lily repeated, stepping lightly a few steps through the room. "Can'¢t, can't, can't, can't," 

Petunia rolled her eyes and stomped her foot again, and Lily saw it this time. "Well, why not?" she asked, her voice growing higher as if she was about to cry. She glared harder and waited for a reply, though Lily didn't give an answer, thinking it better, or ruder, or easier (it was hard to tell which) to step onto the stairs and walk past her sister than to speak to her. "Why, Lily?" 

"Because I don't want to give her a bloody message from you. I'm going out." 

*** 

Lily knocked on the hard oak door, reflecting on her sister's request and wondering if she should have slapped her, but as the door opened a crack and the saw the brown eyes of Father Alexander, she thought it was better she had left when she had and wondered if she should ask God for forgiveness for swearing at her sister. 

She looked down the street at the little gray church, about a block away, and looked at his eyes, not sure of what was found there. He opened the door wider, seeing it was her, and smiled a little. "Miss Evans," he said. "I wouldn't have suspected you." 

She wondered if it would be rude to tell him she wouldn't have suspected him to be wearing blue jeans. He was wearing them, too, paired with a T-shirt advertising some sort of French motorcycle race and holding a glass of wine. A little unnerved, quickly understanding the fine line between man and priest, she smiled and pointed to the glass, a little awkward but calm despite herself. "Blood of Christ?" she asked him. 

"Yes, of course," he said. He seemed to relax at this, though, because, with a deep breath, he laughed a little and she thought that every other time she had heard him laugh sounded much more forced. He opened the door wider so she could enter, as she did. 

"How are you?" he said, his voice sounding like he wasn't sure what else to say. "How have you been since, what, Sunday?" 

"Good. Always good, you know?" She tilted her head one side to the other and then smiled. Sighing, she let the smile drop. "Don't mind it that I forget youÃƒ¢Ã¢‚¬Ã¢„¢d know when I'm lying, Father." 

He frowned. "Alex," he said. "What?" "Call me, Alex. It's strange that you call me Father. I have sisters younger than you." He crossed the room into the kitchen of the apartment, turning to look at Lily. He raised a wine glass. " _Blood of Christ_?" he offered, a note of irony wavering in his voice, and she nodded, unsure why she had. 

She wasn't sure she should see him like this, as a man rather than a god. She hadn't been sure there was a difference until now. She looked at him, realizing quickly he was looking back. She blushed slightly, looked down, and looked back up again when he offered her the glass. "You can sit if you like-" 

"You know, you can call me 'Lily' if you want." she said, not seeming to notice she had interrupted him with her own burst of thought until she had. She blushed again, and wondered if she should apologize, but never did. She sat quickly on the small black couch at the center of the living room. She cleared her throat, laughing awkwardly a moment later. "You've got a nice place." She told him. "Alex," she added as an afterthought. 

"Lily," he said. He sat next to her and took a sip of wine. Somewhere in the apartment, a record was softly playing a blues tunes. "Lily," he repeated, more forcefully this time. "What are you doing here?" 

She shrugged, drinking a little from her glass, noticing the way the wine felt dryly conserved. She looked up at the man before her. "I needed to lose myself in something, you know. Have you ever felt like that?" 

He nodded, looking down at the coffee table in front of them, at the wine bottle at the center also, but mostly at the mahogany wood. "Every day of my life, I think," he laughed again, like he was covering over the things he had said. "But I know what it's like." 

"You just want to feel alive. You don't care what it takes." She paused, blowing her hair out of her face. "I'm not normally like this, Alex." He raised an eyebrow, but he said nothing. "I'm quieter. I talk less. I study and I'm good. Jesus, Alex, how are you _so_ godly?" 

"Godly?" he asked. "I'm not." He put a hand on her leg and laughed deeply, eyes twinkling madly with amusement. "You're such a strange girl. I don't even believe you're here." 

"Well, I am," she said. "And you _are_ godly. Even if you don't know it. I've never met anyone like that before. Priests aren't supposed to be like that, are they?" She laughed too, finishing off her glass of wine and setting it on the table. He poured another glass for each of them, and pushed his black hair from his eyes. She watched the action, how graceful it was, and rested deeper into the pillows on the side of the couch. "I'm glad I'm here." She told him. 

He rested his hand on her hip, taking another sip of wine, and smiled. "So am I."

***

Lily scratched her head a little. "Alex, what time is it?" She felt as if she'd been there for days. She'd never spoken so deeply with a person, learned so much about anyone so quickly. It was enticing, intoxication, breath-taking. _He_ was breath-taking, she decided. She'd never met anyone so lively or so real. He had so much faith in everything, in everyone, and she understood that was why he was a priest. 

"Late, I think," he told her, blinking and seeming to realize he had had too much wine. "Too late for you to be here. I- It's," he checked a clock a little ways away. "Far later than it should be." 

"Should I go, Alex?" she asked. "I don't know what my mother will say if I get home in the middle of the night." 

He laughed. "My mum never took it very well." He stroked her cheek, his eyes wandering her face. "I don't think I want you to leave." 

"I don't want to," she laughed. "But I can't very well stay the night. I-" 

His lips met hers before she even realized they ever might. Warm, real, pulsing with divinity and strength, his kiss searched the very depths of her for something similar. His hands wandered her stomach, and her fingers grazed his back. She _wanted_ him to kiss her, _wanted_ to be kissed. 

He was so much more beautiful like this than she could possibly have imagined. Slowly, it dawned on her, that he could be everything she had ever wanted. His kisses deepened, fiery in their fervent nature, but precise in making her feel like she was like that too, like she was truly alive. And even as she wasn't sure how to give him the same idea and feelings, he drew her shirt over her head, and she wanted him to see her like that, wanted him to enjoy everything about her. She wanted him to think she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She was undoing his belt when she realized she was much less graceful, that he must have done this before, but that hardly mattered to her, and she continued to unzip his pants with fumbling hands. 

If there was any way to stop herself, she wouldn't have.

***

It must have been around four the next morning that Lily woke up in the gray-dressed, mahogany bed, a little cold with only the gray sheet draped across her, and very much alone. Pulling her self upwards, she felt as if her center had been torn and her body throbbed at the apex of her legs.

She couldn't remember ever having felt this before. It began to dawn on her she sat fully that she had spent the night in bed with a priest. She chewed on her lip absently as she wondered why she had done it, wondered if she was now divine, wondered if this was what it felt like to have kiss-bruised lips. She liked the feeling, liked the way she felt fresh, new, separate from everything she had been up until then. She drew her fingers over her lips, and wrapped the sheet tighter around her. 

The air smelt strongly of slightly burned coffee, a tarry smell, and something sexual, raw, and very human. Feeling as if she was being watched, she turned to see Alex sitting in a chair nearby, eyes wide, and looking worn. 

"I made you coffee, Lily," he said. "I didn't have sugar so I put honey in it. I've never had mine like that." 

"Neither have I," she admitted, not very intent on her speech. She watched him carefully, not sure what to tell him, and wondered what she was supposed to say. He had a wild-eyed look about him, and she didn't know how to change that. "Are you okay?" 

He smiled. "No, not really." He told her, "I don't do this. Not anymore." 

"I don't," she paused, and tried to laugh as if she was saying something trivial and unimportant. "I don't either, you know. What am I supposed to say to you?" 

He looked up at her to smile kindly, and she hoped she would never see anyone look so sad again. His eyes were drawn darker than normal and squinted so they didn't seem so brilliant, and his cheeks were paler than the norm. He looked as if he hadn't slept for days, and she wondered for a moment if he had. "You were a virgin?" It wasn't so much a question as a statement, but she felt inclined to answer, to say something to make him stop looking at her. She nodded, thinking it would be more proper to blush, though she didn't see how it would matter either way. "Sorry," he whispered. 

" _Don't be_. I don't mind. I should be sorry. I shouldn't have come." 

"No," he said, shaking his head, and laughing in a whisper's pitch. "No," he looked up at her moving over so he could sit on the bed. He kissed her forehead, smiled down at her, and kissed her lower lip. "You're so beautiful, I could never have resisted. But I can't do this. I can't have you here." 

"Alex, I'm _so_ sorry." She kissed him despite her words, and he wrapped his arms around her, and by the time she knew he was crying, she was too.

***

Lily had never hurt so deeply in all her life as she scraped her key out of the lock and opened the front door of the house she had grown up in. 

The room was scarred with shadows, and Lily was very aware of how lonely the house felt, how no one believed in it any more and it was no longer a home. She and Petunia had grown up, their father had left, their mother had changed. 

It looked the same as it always had, and it still smelt a little of burnt food, and, if you listened close enough, you could still hear the sound of children laughing and girls screaming and sisters turning into women, but it breathed differently. She couldn't describe it any better. 

She stepped from her sneakers, leaving them by the door to warm up again for whatever tomorrow would bring, and padded in her socks across the aqua rug and collapsed on her own dear couch. 

There were no lights on, and she wasn't sure what she would do with the rest of her life. 

 

A/N: I combined the original chapter three and four in the rewrite here, and it somehow feels wrong. Whatever, I guess. She'll return to Hogwarts in the next chapter.

I'm not sure whether or not this seems disconnected. I've been writing Lily this way, now, for so long that the way she thinks about things is part of how I write her. She's a little disillusioned and confused, and my writing tends to be confusing because of that. I can't tell right now whether I've distanced myself from that or not.


End file.
